Re: Alternate titles, and oth...

[GaryH2018@aol.com]

Eogan writes:
>And now on to something completely different.....
>Has anyone seen an example of a Scottish Lord taking the title of Cheif in
>the SCA?  Is there presedence for this?  My inspiration for this question
>comes from the song "Bonnie Dundee," which says, "There are hills beyond
>Pentland and land beyond Forth, There are lords to the south, there are
>cheifs in the north..."
>Based on the song's earlier mention of Cavaliers, I would say it speaks of
>Cromwell's time, which (If I remember my history correctly) puts it
somewhere
>post period.  

The incident the song is referring to took place in 1689 when Jame Graeme (or
Graham) of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee (aka Bonnie Dundee, aka Bluidy
Claver'se) raised the standard of James II and VII against the usurper
William of Orange.  Dundee was killed later that year in the Jacobite victory
at Killiecrankie.

>Come to think of it, all references I've seen about Highland
>Cheifs have been post period, but surely they had Cheifs before 1600.
>Any thoughts on this?  I really should know this stuff myself, but the only
>way to find out is to ask someone who does.

There are certainly references to "chiefs" and "captains of the name" in
period (albeit late period).  I don't think that this was a formal title (at
least not in the SCA sense) until sometime post-period.  In other words while
everyone may have known Malcolm MacX was "chief" or "captain" of the MacXs he
wasn't formally addressed as such. If I had to make a wild guess, I'd suspect
that it became a formal title sometime in the Victorian period - when so much
of Scots "tradition" was invented.

Gary (The ardent Jacobite)
aka
Ranulf of Waterford (who thinks Scots are just another Celtic nuisance)